The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1887-05-18
The Presidents Exclusiyeness.

The statement that President Cleveland
has caused private entrance to be cut into
his private box in one Of the Washington
theaters, so that he may not be annoyed by
the vulgar curiosity of the common herd
when he goes TO the play will not be re-
ceived with complacency by the Jetfer-
sonian Democracy. Many Of them will re-
echo Mr.. Watterson's caustic remarks on
this theme:
"At time when all that is mean and sor-
did in our shoddy society is turning itself
inside out to ape the manners of the titled
and rich aristocracies Of Christendom; when
ll-gotten wealth is tumbling heels over
head in the scramble for a coarse, corrupt
ing pre- eminence in parvenuism; when the
old stately courtesy of simple manhood and
womanhood, which once were n charm all
their own in our public walks and ways,
are being ingulfed in the hog wallow of
the new-made greatness, with its imported
trappings, it was most fit and needful that
a Democratic President and his Democratic
administration should rise above the mud
and the mire of fraud and cant, and plant
themselves upon the high and solid ground
of self -honoring reality, with its homely
lessons of modesty and truth. A private
entrance to private box because the crowd
'annoys himl Fab and out upon such
tomfoolery! On what birdlings doth this
our birdie feed that he hath grown 80 sem
silver"
This private box exclusiveness and isola-
ton from the people is excusable among
the European sovereigns, who are not alto
gether secure as to the design of the SUBJ
Iects and who are apprehensive of what
might occur to their royal persons in case
of close propinquity, but Mr.. Cleveland
cannot urge this excuse, which would only
write him down n coward. Hence it can
only remain that he desires to be exclusive
because he is annoyed by the gaze or touch
of the crowd, of which few short years
ago he was an unknown and inconspicuous
member. This popularity has been mani
tested several times since he entered the
White House, and appears to be growing
on him. AS q bachelor ledger over the
grocery store, as one of the boys" in Buff
falo, as Sheriff and hangman, and even as
Governor, he was always approachabie,
but since his consorting with the mug
wumps and his elevation to the Presidency
| be has cultivated exclusiveness and the
usages of aristocracy with all the
zest that is Characteristic of par
venus blossoming out with sudden
wealth and beggars dizzy with equine
ascendency over the peripatetic herd be-
meath them. Nothing more surely pro-
claims the smallfryness of man than the
assumption OF dignity among his fellows,
or his pretentious character than his pain
ful effort to assert and protect it. Men of
real dignity never have to assert it or to
withdraw from Their equals from fear Of
losing it, or from apprehension that it may
be questioned as counterfeit. Men born to
the purple are never afraid of soiling it by
contact with their kind. Men of native
dignity do not have to guard it or give it
any thought. The President does not APP
pear TO be one of this kind. He is evil
IDENTIFY apprehensive that his dignity is i'll
fitting, and that if he exposes himself to
the public he may fall back into his old
ways and lose it altogether, or that it may
be discovered that il is pinchbeck and not
the real thing. AS the leader of the tawdry
procession of fummery in Washington,
none of whom will bear very close inspec-
ton, it is evidently needful that he should
isolate himself from the public, lest some
Jeifersonian sans culoUe should rudely
brush against the bubble and burst it. But
how about Jefiersonian simplicity in a roy
al box!-ChicdgO Tribune.